


Rose of the Night

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Rose of the Prophet - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-03
Updated: 2008-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1630679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A daughter of Khardan and Zohra seeks to bargain with a familiar figure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rose of the Night

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Alioqui for the beta.
> 
> Written for karrenia_rune

 

 

The quiet daughter, they called Akilah. Of all of Khardan and Zohra's children, she alone had not inherited the father's pride, the mother's impetuousness. She was not unsmiling, but she kept her eyes modestly lowered, her hands temperately folded in the robes of her chador.

Ah, sighed the Akar, finally a child who will not keep us up at night with arguments and fist fights. And if Akilah was not entirely proper, either--like her brothers and sisters she sat a horse as easily as the spahis did, riding across the dunes when the sun's dying light scorched them red--they were willing to overlook that. Perhaps they were even a little disappointed: while life with the Calif's brood could be unsettling, it was rarely dull.

Akilah smiled to herself and thought her own thoughts. It was her custom to slip out of the tent (or yurt, depending on which of her parents was winning that particular argument at the moment) at night and walk a little way out of the camp. If she realized that one of her brothers or cousins always followed her to make sure that she was not carried off by raiders or attacked by wolves, she gave no sign of it.

This night there was a fierce, inconstant wind, and the stars above glittered like the jewels upon her mother's fingers. It had rained the past two days. The desert showed its gentler face: the bright, fragrant flowers that bloomed so infrequently, the grasses green and lush. Although most of her face was covered as custom dictated, Akilah could feel the wind upon the exposed skin around her eyes and upon her hands, feel it whipping her chador about her body.

Between one breath and the next, Akilah saw a man with a sword in hand. If he cast a shadow, it was faint, lost among the shifting sands. The starlight shone faintly upon his black armor, which bore the device of a snake severed in several places. The snake's ruby eyes were curiously bright in the darkness. As for the man's own eyes, they were dark, cold, considering.

Akilah did not cry out, as perhaps she should have. She had seen this face before, met this man most of the years of her life. But this year she was thirteen, her body filling out with the curves of womanhood. For the first time she began to look at the nameless man as a woman looks upon a man; as a threat, perhaps. She told herself that in all the time she had known him, the dark-eyed specter had never harmed her, never approached her too closely. True, he accompanied her on her nighttime walks, and there was something uncanny about the way silence enfolded him--and her--such that her brothers or cousins never seemed to hear them speaking and wonder at it, or take alarm.

The corner of the man's mouth curled upward a notch, as though he had guessed her thoughts. And surely he had. They had talked long hours into the night, this year and those before it, even when she was a solemn little girl stumbling after words she didn't know yet. He understood her as well as her parents did--perhaps even better, for Khardan and Zohra were much occupied with the tribe's affairs, be they trade routes or disputes over sheep, and they had other children to watch over, after all.

Akilah lifted her chin--for the man knew her well enough that he would not take offense at her boldness--and spoke. "What brings you here tonight, traveler?" It was a polite fiction that he was a traveler like any other. What he was exactly, Akilah was not sure, and truthfully she never quite thought to question it, even when she questioned other things in her life--something her father's second "wife" had taught her.

"Little Akilah," the man said, his expression revealing nothing, "what troubles you tonight?"

She did not respond immediately, but tilted her head and looked past him to the indistinct horizon. In her memory she heard her father's boisterous laughter, felt the soothing touch of her mother's hands. Yet it was not to them that she turned now.

After a while she said, "My parents speak of giving me in marriage in several years' time." She did not name the men under consideration, although she had no doubt that the specter would recognize them.

"Do you find your future husband objectionable?" the man asked, a hint of amusement in his voice. "A feeble old man, perhaps, or a witless youth?"

Akilah shook her head. "Nothing like that. My parents--the way they met--"

"I'm familiar with the tale."

"They wish to see me happy," Akilah said. Three of her older siblings were married already, and while there had been arguments and tears and recriminations, they did eventually find joy. "I have always known that I might be married to a man because his family wields influence or has wealth." She said this without resentment.

"Then what troubles you?"

Akilah held his gaze. "I wish to go where you go, to learn the wisdom of the god you serve."

For once it seemed that she had taken him by surprise. "You are impetuous"--she couldn't tell whether he approved or disapproved--"to make such a declaration without knowing my nature or that of my god."

"Don't I?" Akilah said softly. "Mathew has taught me to value the arts of observation and deduction." Indeed, among all her siblings she had proved the most apt at these things. "You have always treated me with courtesy. Your armor and bearing make it clear that you are a warrior, an honorable and fearsome one. Most of all"--her voice softened involuntarily--"you have watched over me all my life. I cannot believe you would do me ill."

Still the dark eyes revealed nothing. "How do you know that I don't seek to exploit you? That I haven't cultivated you so long for precisely this moment?"

Her heartbeat faltered. For all her precocity, she was still a child. Had she been wrong?

Yet she remembered that he had taught her the names of constellations different than the ones her mother or Mathew had spoken of; during a couple lean years (Akhran might have blessed her parents, but his attention did wander) he had distracted her from her hunger by teaching her to separate the needs of her body from the focus of her mind; whenever she had a question about faraway lands and customs he always had an answer.

"I take it you haven't approached your parents about this," the man remarked.

"There would be no sense doing so if I didn't have your approval first."

"How long have you been planning this?"

Beneath her veil, Akilah flushed. "A long time." She might be young, but she had observed life among her father's people. As much as she loved them, it was not what she wanted for herself. Her siblings were content with the desert wind, the magnificent horses, the daily struggle to survive. But perhaps because of the stories about her parents' past adventures (no matter that the Akar had exaggerated them tenfold over the years), she longed for something--other.

The man laughed at last--not a warm laugh, but not a cruel one either. "I should give such foresight the respect it deserves. I will make you a bargain, little Akilah--"

She bit her lip but did not nod, knowing better than to agree to something without having heard it.

"We will speak of this again when you are fifteen," the man said. "And at that time, if this desire is still in your heart, we will go to your parents." Noticing her dismay, he added, "It is not that it would trouble me to show you the paths of my faith. But I am bound to respect the Calif's will in certain matters, even now." His tone was wry, even self-mocking.

"Thank you," Akilah said in a low voice, trusting that he kept his promises.

The man glanced up at the sky, then back at Akilah. "The night grows chill. Return to your place in the tents and sleep, little Akilah. There will be time and time again for us to speak."

Tired of a sudden, she did as he bid her, her footsteps leaving a weaving trail in the sand.

Akilah did not look back--she never did--so she did not see the man watching her until she was out of sight. "It seems that Zhakrin and Akhran both have a sense of humor," the man said, shaking his head in bemusement. "Instead of a son, after all these years--a daughter?"

Between one moment and the next, he faded into the night's darkness, and the wind blew a little colder afterward.

 


End file.
